49ers: NFL-best 9 players to Pro Bowl

After Donte Whitner signed with the 49ers last year and joined forces with fellow safety Dashon Goldson, he believed they could form a terrific twosome.

Thirty-one regular season games later, Whitner and Goldson, by one measurement, have accomplished their goal: They are the best safety duo in the NFL.

For the second straight season, the 49ers had an NFL-high nine players named to the Pro Bowl. This season, that list included a franchise-record five defensive starters, including Goldson and Whitner, the first safeties from the same team to be named Pro Bowl starters since the 2005 Eagles sent Brian Dawkins and Michael Lewis to Honolulu.

“We got here together and we made up our mind that we were going to go out there and try to be two of the best safeties in the National Football League,” Whitner said. “And we definitely want to be the No. 1 tandem.”

The safeties were among a group of seven starters. The others: linebackers Patrick Willis and Aldon Smith, defensive tackle Justin Smith, left guard Mike Iupati and left tackle Joe Staley. Linebacker NaVorro Bowman and running back Frank Gore are Pro Bowl backups.

Aldon Smith, Whitner, Iupati and Bowman are first-time Pro Bowl selections. Willis is a regular. The inside linebacker is the first player in franchise history to earn Pro Bowl honors in each of his first six seasons in the league.

San Francisco’s seven Pro Bowl starters matches a franchise record set last year, when three of their starters were specialists in placekicker David Akers, punter Andy Lee and long snapper Brian Jennings.

Before this season, the 49ers had not had seven combined offensive and defensive starters. They had six in 1971.